


The Snow Queen, the Beast, and the Quester

by youreyestheyglow



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 04:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youreyestheyglow/pseuds/youreyestheyglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After years spent trapped inside Satsuki's palace, Ryuko escapes and runs into Mankanshoku Mako on her way to the Snow Queen's palace to rescue her brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Snow Queen, the Beast, and the Quester

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is basically the bastard child of Beauty and the Beast and Snow Queen. Mostly Snow Queen.

He turned up at their door one cold winter morning, a young girl at his side. "I've heard of your experiments. I believe I can help."

"I'm sorry, I'm not looking for assistants," Ragyo answered, with a voice as cold as the snow that swirled around her visitor. 

"Not as an assistant. As a partner. An equal."

"I sincerely doubt that you can help me at all, let alone to the point where I would consider you an equal. Good-bye."

She moved to shut the door.

He stuck his foot inside. "If you would like to take a look?" He pulled something out of his pocket.

Ragyo took it.

A thread. A single thread, that glowed in her hand.

Ragyo stepped aside, letting the man in. "Perhaps you are correct. What are your conditions?"

"That you provide shelter for myself and my daughter."

Ragyo glanced inside her castle of a home, a smirk playing across her lips. "I think we can find you a room. My name is Kiryuuin Ragyo. My daughter, Satsuki, is around somewhere, and doubtless you will make her acquaintance sometime soon."

"Matoi Isshin. My daughter's name is Ryuuko."

"Allow me to give you the grand tour."

* * *

Satsuki and Ryuko sat on the couch, as far away from each other as they could possibly get.

"Girls, we give these to you with the expectation that you will wear them responsibly. They are incredibly dangerous, and -"

The red kamui tore itself out of Isshin's hands, flying at Ryuuko, screaming something unintelligible.

Ryuuko shrieked. 

Seconds later, she sat up on the floor, hair a wreck, bleeding from a small cut on her forehead from the stone floor, wearing kamui Senketsu, face an expression of pure shock. She reached up and touched the cut, grimaced, and wiped the blood on her new outfit.

"It's not supposed to do that, why did it -"

"Junketsu didn't do that," Ragyo pointed out calmly. "Senketsu and Junketsu were made the same way, from the same batch. Any differences now can only be attributed to personality."

"Personality?" Satsuki asked sharply. "That sounds as though -"

"We've created  _life_ ," Isshin said wondrously.

Ragyo glanced at him. "You sound surprised. Isn't that what we were working towards?"

"I was working towards a  _mechanical_ version of life - a robot, in miniature, that could be combined with other robots to make something larger, something that could augment humanity. Something that can  _mimic_ it -  _that_ was not in my plans."

"He," Ryuuko said quietly.

"What?"

"Not 'it'.  _He_."

"What are you talking about?"

"Senketsu. He isn't an  _it_ , he's a _he_. He says so."

"What do you mean, he says so?"

"Senketsu can talk. Can't you hear him? Oh, wait - no, he says I'm the only one who can hear him, because of our... blood connection." She gave her kamui a skeptical look. "I rubbed some blood on you, did that  _really_ create a - oh. Ok, but aren't life fibers supposed to do cool stuff, like - oh. How do I -? Okay."

Ragyo smiled as Ryuuko got up and left the room. "I believe the experiment was a success."

Isshin passed the blue kamui to Satsuki. "Yours appears to be much more well-behaved. A little like yourself, actually."

Satsuki took it and stood. "I'm going to go try it on."

Ragyo nodded, dismissing her.

* * *

"Are you sure you're willing to try this?"

"Absolutely."

Isshin sighed and shook his head as he moved to the other side of the glass wall to stand in front of a control panel. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Ragyo stood, wearing the third and last kamui, bleeding from her hands, arms spread wide, as Isshin pressed the buttons that would initiate the program.

Mechanical hands shot out, and Isshin watched them on his screen as they deposited life fibers inside the gashes on Ragyo's hands. 

Isshin watched her hands, waiting for the life fibers to wrap around her hands, do something other than what they were supposed to do - but no, his theory had been correct. Without the thread that kept the fibers together, they latched onto whatever could give them life: in this case, Ragyo.

There were six life fibers in her bloodstream when she snatched her hands away.

"What's wrong?" Isshin yelled through the glass.

Ragyo shivered. 

"Ragyo?"

"I don't have enough blood," she answered calmly. "I don't think this is going to work."

"The fibers are  _inside_ your  _body_ , it can't just  _not work_ ," Isshin yelled.

"Well then, we appear to have a problem," she responded as she sank to the ground. "My body is getting colder - slowing down, presumably, in an effort to prevent further blood loss. I would not hesitate to say that it is failing."

"No, no, no, no,  _no_ -" Isshin muttered to himself as he stared down the control panel, eyes flicking around as he assessed his options. "They're  _life_ _fibers_ , they can survive without blood, they just gain most of their power from it, you should be able to -"

"Isshin, it would be better if you left. Life fibers aren't human, they can do things we can't, and I'm not sure what they're doing right now -"

"Drawing heat from the air," Isshin told her as he watched information fly across a screen. "Your body is trying to cool down, but life fibers work better in the heat, they're trying to warm up - keep pressure on your hands, don't lose anymore blood -"

"I'm still bleeding, I can't stop it, and it's getting worse, it was never supposed to go on this long - go get Satsuki and Ryuko, this won't end well and they need to be protected -"

"They'll be fine, they're floors above us - I'm heating up the room. Your body can't survive, but life fibers aren't human, they can do things we can't, and you can survive this -"

"Isshin, go get Satsuki and Ryuko, keep them safe, don't be stupid -"

Isshin turned up the temperature. "I've always been smarter than you, if I say they're safe, they're safe. Now shut up and let me  _work -_

Ragyo's body twisted in ways it shouldn't have, twinkling as her outfit twirled with her and broke around her.

" _Ragyo_ -!"

The temperature in the room dropped as she absorbed it, ice crystallizing over the control panel in seconds.

* * *

"Dad -  _Dad_!" Ryuko screamed, dropping down to her knees as she tried to pull her father out of the ice. "Satsuki, help -"

"It's too late for him," she snapped, standing in the doorway, scanning the room. "Where's Ragyo?"

"Not here, so -"

"What's that?" Satsuki asked, pointing at a dark shape in the corner.

"Who knows? Help me -"

"It's moving."

"I don't care!" Ryuko yelled as she tried frantically to warm her dad.

"Ryuko, he's dead, and the thing in the corner is moving. Why do you always insist on -"

Ryuko looked up. 

The shadowy shape emerged from its corner.

"What the hell is that?" Ryuko screamed.

"It's Ragyo."

"What do you mean, it's - oh."

The hair was unmistakable - it still shimmered like a rainbow. But the wolfish creature that padded towards them wasn't Ragyo, not anymore. 

"Ryuko, maybe you should come towards me."

"Why did she change?"

"I don't know, but -"

"Satsuki. Why. Is. She. Different?"

"Matoi Ryuko you come this way right now -"

"She's a wolf, she can survive the cold, it's cold, she changed so she could survive and my dad couldn't, it's her fault he's dead, it's her  _fault_ -" Ryuko screamed as she stood. 

"That doesn't -"

" _She killed him_!" 

Senketsu burst, filling the room as he and Ryuko transformed into a beast, yelling unintelligibly as her teeth grew to fangs, her eyes bulging out of her head, body stretching to become a strange caricature of Senketsu himself.

She dove at Ragyo.

* * *

"Because you went berserk."

"So what, that doesn't mean I'm -"

"Yes, it does."

"No, it doesn't."

"Have you managed to take off Senketsu yet?"

"No, but -"

"Then you're still dangerous."

"Right, and you're not."

"Not as much as you are. I, at least, am logical."

"Yeah, because what you're doing is entirely logical," Ryuko snapped. "Kidnapping people just to see if someone comes after them?"

"People are pigs. Look at her - Jakazure Nonon, the girl who steps on others for the sake of worthless things that she has no need for. What purpose does she serve?" Satsuki asked, pointing to the only screen in the entire palace, the only one that hadn't frozen over entirely when Ragyo had covered the palace and the surrounding forest in ice and snow.

"Is it really your right to decide?"

"No one else will make the decision, so I must."

"That makes no sense, it's not your business."

"If someone comes for her, she will be allowed to go free."

"What difference does that make? Some poor person is gonna have to walk through a forest and twenty-five miles of snow three feet deep, past  _Ragyo_ , in order to save one person? Let alone the time it would take to get to the forest in the first place? That's cruel!"

"And if someone does it, it would prove that the person has enough worth to be allowed in the world."

"Allowed? What is it, some kind of test?"

"Yes. I'm leaving now. You will stay here. I will be locking the gates behind me and taking the sleigh and the wolves. You cannot get past Ragyo. Don't ruin anything."

"Like hell I'm staying," Ryuko said as she followed Satsuki to the door. "I'm coming -"

Satsuki whirled. "You have little to no self-control, I don't know what sets you off, and you have been unable to remove Senketsu for two years now. and I see no reason to believe that you will not hurt anyone while we are outside. Do you want to kill people?"

Ryuko watched silently as Satsuki turned and left.

* * *

" _That's_ your next victim?" Ryuko asked incredulously. "What could she possibly have done -"

"Not her. Watch."

The girl looked behind her and stood. A boy walked in. She hurled herself at him, laughing happily - clearly lovers. 

"Mankanshoku Mataro. He steals from everyone. The pig," She snarled, "does not deserve to remain in human company."

"Who's the girl?" Ryuko asked.

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

"She doesn't look up for such a long journey."

"Perhaps she'll be willing to take it, perhaps not. If not, the world will be rid of one more pig." She turned and strode out the door.

Ryuko listened for the click of the key.

It didn't come.

She approached the door, something approximating hope brewing in her mind.

She turned the doorknob.

It was unlocked.

Ryuko's heart pounded.

"Be careful, Ryuko," Senketsu muttered. "Don't get overexcited."

"I'm not," she snapped. "I'm just - trying something."

The door slid open quietly.

Ryuko peeked her head out.

She watched as Satsuki, standing up perfectly straight in the sleigh, guided her team of wolves out the gate.

"Senketsu?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think I'm up for this?"

"I do."

Ryuko took a deep breath and stepped outside, closing the door quietly behind her. "We can't kill Ragyo. Don't let me kill Ragyo."

"I'll try, but it's up to you."

Ryuko shivered as her feet sank into the snow. The cold didn't bother her - she'd lived in an ice palace for the past five years - but snow was more than cold, it was wet, and it was finding its way into her shoes. "Let's do this."

She closed her eyes and remembered her father's icy body.

Anger boiled in her stomach, heating her blood until she and Senketsu stretched into their berserker form.

She ran, unstoppable, towards the gate, towards the forest, towards the real world that she hadn't seen since she was ten.

Towards freedom.


End file.
